The firm as a ‘dispersed’ social agency∗

Abstract What is the status of objectives as far as firms are concerned? This paper argues that the manner in which the objectives of firms and the like are conceived by management consultants and within economics is probably wrong or at least open to serious doubt. The paper tries to re-formulate the character of objectives by not conceiving of the firm as a unitary locus of means and ends but by seeing it as an entity through which a number of often conflicting and ambiguous practices of calculation and assessment pass. The pertinence of this conception with respect to some of the themes of orthodox 'theory of the firm' literature is discussed later in the paper.